





Does % Hnfoerstty Pay ? 



t^i 




Lawrence 

1892. 



DOES THE UNIVERSITY PAY? 



BY 



L. B. KELLOGG. 



THE AMUAL OPENING ADDRESS 



AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 



Lawrence, Friday, September 9, 1892. 



PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY. 



TOPEKA. 

PRESS OF THE HAMILTON PRINTING COMPANY: 

Edwin H. Snow, State Printer. 
1892. 



DOES THE UNIVERSITY PAY ? 



In 1861 the State of Kansas became a State 
under the Wyandotte constitution. The framers 
of that instrument saw, or thought they saw, the 
necessity for such an institution of learning as 
this. Provision was accordingly made in the 
organic law of the State for the University of 
Kansas. The Congress of the United States, in 
the enabling act admitting Kansas into the Union, 
recognized the same real or fancied necessity; and 
a grant of public land was made to the State for 
the University. The Legislature of the State in 
1863 appointed commissioners to locate the Uni- 
versity, and in 1864 provided for its organization, 
here at Lawrence; and this hill, with its delight- 
ful mountain name, has ever since been its home. 
Beginning with 1866, every Legislature that has 
since convened within this State has, to a greater 
or less extent, appropriated money from the pub- 
lic treasury for its maintenance. The growth of 
the University has been such that the amount 
now required for its actual and necessary expenses 
is at the rate of $75,000 yearly. 



4 Does the Univebsity pay? 

This money, so used, has been raised by the 
taxation of all the people. Every farmer, me- 
chanic, lawyer, banker, barber, real- estate agent and 
merchant in Kansas, regardless of whether he has 
children to be educated or not, and regardless of 
whether he likes it or not, has been compelled to 
pay his share of the cost of maintaining the Uni- 
versity continuously, each year, for more than a 
quarter of a century. To paraphrase a somewhat 
familiar and somewhat famous quotation from an 
eminent British author: Everything we have is 
taxed for the University. The farmer drives his 
taxed horses to a taxed field to plow his taxed 
furrows. The housewife wields a taxed broom. 
The boy whips a taxed top. And all this for the 
purpose of keeping this school on its feet, to pro- 
vide these buildings, supply the teachers, the 
library, the apparatus, the mounted buffalo and 
moose, the snakes, stones, and insects, and other 
miscellaneous wares in Snow Hall, the various 
courses of study, and all else that goes to make 
up the visible and material University by which 
you are surrounded and of which you are a part. 

Why is this ? Is it a waste of public funds, 
or not ? Why should my neighbor who has a 
quarter-section, Neosho -river-bottom farm, a hun- 
dred acres of corn, a couple of hundred hogs, and 
several hundred acres of upland prairie, and whose 
whole life has been spent in "raising more corn 
each year, to feed more hogs, to buy more land, to 



Does the University Pay? 5 

raise more corn, to feed more hogs," but who has 
never been here upon Mt. Oread in his life, and 
has never heard of the University except in con- 
nection with his taxes, and cares less for it than 
for a lame mule — or did care less until last year, 
when the chinch -bugs got into his corn, and his 
neighbor sent up to Professor Snow for some of 
the infection that saved his crop — why should he 
be compelled each year to continue the University 
in successful operation ? That it is in successful 
operation, is conceded. That it has within recent 
years, and under its present Board of Regents and 
Chancellor, made rapid strides toward the front 
rank among American State universities, is well 
known to every citizen of Kansas who knows any- 
thing about the matter. But still the question 
recurs, why should my ignorant farmer friend of 
the Neosho valley, who works hard, and denies 
himself for every dollar he accumulates, be forced 
by the strong arm of the law to assist in the pay- 
ment of the university education of the young men 
and women here assembled as students of this in- 
stitution of learning ? No son or daughter of my 
farmer friend is here ; none of his kith or kin has 
ever been enrolled as a student in the University. 
To tell him that the door is open, and that his 
son or daughter, or both of them for that matter, 
might be here, would be no answer to his mind. 
He says he needs their services on the farm, "to 



6 DOES THE UNIVERSITY PAY? 

raise more corn, to feed more hogs, to buy more 
land. 1 ' And then, it is not quite true that his son 
or daughter could be here. They have had no 
preparatory study. The rules of the University 
necessarily, but none the less absolutely, shut out 
-all except the few who have had the requisite 
high -school or academic training, to enable them 
to do the university work here provided. 

We talk a good deal in this country about the 
universality of education. We point to our pub- 
lic schools as the place where all are educated. 
But have you never noticed how few out of the 
whole number of school children ever reach the 
high school? and of the high-school students how 
very few of them ever complete the course of 
study and graduate? The city of Topeka is prob- 
ably a fair sample. There were in 1890, in what 
may be called the primary grades, 2,956 children; 
in the intermediate schools, 1,897; in the gram- 
mar grades, 642; in the high school, 250; 49 
graduated from the high school. It will thus be 
seen that, out of an annual school attendance of 
5,745, the finished product consists of only 49 
graduates. 

President Quayle, of Baker University, this 
State, in a recent article in the JEpivorth Herald, 
says there are in the United States 415 colleges, 
with 118,581 students. If he is right in his fig- 
ures, it follows that out of 60,000,000 people less 



DOES THE UNIVEBSITY PAY? 7 

than 120,000 are found in the colleges of the land 
at any one time. This is a fraction of rfhr of 1 
per cent, of the people. 

It will therefore be seen that, notwithstanding 
all that may be justly said in praise of the edu- 
cational system of this country, the number of its 
citizens who actually acquire a college education 
is but an insignificant fraction of the whole num- 
ber. 

Again the question, why should the 1,500,000 
of the people of Kansas be taxed to educate the 
500 or 600 students of this University? 

The answer is a prosaic one. There is no sen- 
timent about it. The State of Kansas has been 
spending its money in this way during all these 
years under the impression that it pays. If it 
did not so believe, the doors of this University 
would be closed to-morrow, the instructors dis- 
persed, and you, the students, discharged from 
further attendance. The State of Kansas looks 
upon this educational enterprise from a purely 
business point of view. There is no charity about 
it. The State has no personal affection or fond- 
ness for the professors or students. It is incapable 
of any, being a corporation, and having, according 
to the saying attributed to Lord Coke, "no soul 
to save nor body to kick." It is willing to pay 
so much money for so much in return. But it 
expects the return with absolute certainty. The 
State, the moment it thinks the work of any pro- 



8 Does the University pay? 

fessor here is not worth what it costs, will not 
hesitate to discharge him. The State has n't the- 
slightest intention of making a donation, or ex- 
tending a free gift to any student here. It is 
williDg to pay $75,000 a year to educate you, but 
it expects you to pay back to the State an equiv- 
alent for that $75,000, and lawful interest thereon. 

The next question is, are you willing to do this ? 
Will you pay back to the State an equivalent 
for what it pays out for you? I anticipate your 
affirmative answer. And I am sure you appreci- 
ate fully the golden opportunities which the Uni- 
versity offers for a broad and liberal culture. It 
is known to you that this University ranks high 
among the colleges and universities of the United 
States. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Mich- 
igan University and Kansas are among those com- 
manding the respect and esteem of educators. It 
is my deliberate opinion that the time has gone 
by when any Kansas parent needs to look beyond 
the confines of the State for a college to which he 
may send his son or daughter, with the expecta- 
tion of finding any better opportunity to acquire 
a thorough education than is possessed here at 
home. 

While I recognize that Kansas students in East- 
ern colleges do good work, and graduate with 
honor to themselves and the colleges to which 
they are accredited, I have yet to learn that when 
they return home and come in contact with their 



DOES THE UNIVEBSITY PAT? 9 

neighbors they find themselves one whit better 
educated, or one whit stronger mentally or mor- 
ally, than those who have been educated at home 
and in this University. I deem the University 
exceptionally fortunate in the class of students 
who attend this school. They are the very choic- 
est young men and women the State of Kansas 
has, eager to learn, pure minded, full of those 
sentiments of honor and patriotism that do credit 
to our higher natures, ambitious, hard working,, 
intense, and thoroughly in earnest about acquiring 
a liberal education. I am aware that there may 
be some students who do not fill the bill, in all 
respects. They are the exceptions. The rule, I 
think, is as I have stated it. And I understand 
the University faculty and students have a way 
of either brightening up or rubbing out any tar 
nished coin that finds its way into the school. 

It is therefore with confidence that I expect an 
affirmative answer to the question, whether or not 
you are willing to do your part in paying to the 
State of Kansas an equivalent for that which it 
compels its citizens to pay out for you. 

The State of Kansas has a large area of good 
agricultural lands, and some not so good; a mild 
climate, a fertile soil, good farms, and good towns; 
an abundance, this year, of wheat, corn, oats, cat- 
tle, horses, hogs, and other farm products; a goodly 
number of politicians and political parties; good 
churches, good schools, good laws, good newspa- 



10 Does the Univebsity pay? 

pers, and a million and a half of people. The 
State has great wealth, ' and some outstanding 
mortgages. But I think the people of Kansas 
are intelligent enough to realize, however, that 
with all her wealth and possessions, what the 
State needs most of all is an increase in the num- 
ber of highly educated men and women. The 
trained mind is the greatest need of the Kansas 
present. If the University can furnish this prod- 
uct, it will repay to the State an hundred fold 
for all the money that has been here expended. 
And if you, the students of this University, can 
so train your minds, broaden your horizon of 
knowledge, develop the intellectual in connection 
with the moral and spiritual elements of your 
young manhood and womanhood, so that you, in 
your own proper persons, shall become this prod- 
uct, you will have liquidated your personal indebt- 
edness to the State for the educational advantages 
here freely extended to you, and will also have 
opened up to yourselves avenues of usefulness, 
and those higher forms of intellectual and social 
pleasures that forever remain a sealed book to 
the uneducated. 

It is somewhat difficult to estimate in dollars 
and cents the value to Great Britain of such a 
trained mind as that of Win. E. Gladstone. That 
the possession of such a mind has been, and is, of 
great pecuniary value to the government, will not, 
I think, be denied. I am willing to hazard the 



• does the univebsity pay? ll 

opinion that it lias been more than the University 
of Oxford has cost since its fonndation. Glad- 
stone illustrates, in breadth of mind, profound 
learning, and high moral purpose, the best prod- 
uct of the English University of Christ Church, 
Oxford, where he closed a brilliant college career 
by taking a double first- class degree, in the year 
1831 ; since which time, that is, for 61 years, he 
has been engaged in paying and repaying, over 
and over again, for all that his college education 
cost. His preparation for college was at Eton. 
Eton and Oxford may well congratulate themselves 
upon the results of the education furnished by 
them to their student. And the student has none 
the less reason for satisfactory reflection that he 
was permitted to lay the foundation for the ripe 
scholarship which he has attained at the famous 
old schools of Eton and Oxford. But, in passing, 
I desire to say to the students here that the edu- 
cational opportunities afforded by Eton and Oxford 
to the young Gladstone were greatly inferior to 
those offered by this University to its students to- 
day. It does not follow that all of you will be 
equal to Gladstone. But it, does follow that some 
of you may be. 

To be an American President is greater than 
to be a British premier, and it is greater yet 
to be worthy of the high office of President. 
There was a struggling Western college in Ohio 
some years ago that had in its freshman class a 



12 DOES THE UNIVERSITY PAY? 

young man of slight build and inferior stature, of 
quiet and unassuming manners. This young man 
quietly attended to his duties as a student, grad- 
uated at an early age, and commenced life as an 
obscure young lawyer in a Western town. There 
was little noticeable in the college life of this 
young man, except a quiet dignity, a conscientious 
discharge of duty, accuracy and exactness in the 
preparation of his studies, and a little greater free- 
dom and readiness in debate and oral discourse 
than that possessed by other members of his class. 
That young man's name was entered on the col- 
lege roll as Harrison, Benjamin. The college was 
Miami. In the same freshman class was another 
young man, larger than he, strong and robust, 
more aggressive and decisive in his manners, but 
of a frank, open and honest countenance. . Be- 
tween the two young men there grew up an in- 
timate and enduring friendship. The young men 
were college chums, including all that is implied 
thereby. The second youth is now the Secretary 
of the Interior of the United States. He was 
called to his present cabinet position by his old 
college friend Harrison. 

About the same time that Harrison and Noble 
were students at Miami, Brewer and Brown were 
the names of two students on the college roll of 
another educational institution of this country. 
These two were also college friends. They pur- 
sued their studies with diligence, and in due 



Does tee Univebsity pay 7 13 

time graduated. One came to Kansas ; one 
chose Michigan for his home. Brewer was the 
Kansan. He commenced the practice of law at 
Leavenworth; served as county attorney, probate 
judge, judge of the district court, as one of the 
justices of the Supreme Court, at Topeka, and 
later as judge of the United States Circuit Court 
for the Eighth Circuit, which includes the States 
of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, 
Colorado, and Arkansas. Brown by successive 
steps had become the judge of the United States 
District Court for the Eastern District of Michi- 
gan. Within the past three years, the greatly la- 
mented death of that eminent jurist, Associate 
Justice Stanley Matthews, of the United States Su- 
preme Court, left a vacancy upon the bench of that 
most august and powerful court, not only of the 
United States but of the entire civilized world. 
The Michigan friends of Judge Brown presented 
his name to the President for appointment. The 
Kansas friends of Judge Brewer presented his 
name for the high place. Other eminent names, 
or rather the names of other eminent men, were 
also presented to the President for his consider- 
ation for the place. Brown, learning that his old 
college friend Brewer was a candidate for this 
exalted position, wrote a personal letter to the 
President recommending Brewer. Brewer finding 
out that his college friend Brown was a candi- 
date, not only wrote to the President, but also 



14 DOES THE UNIVEBSITY PAY? 

went to Washington and called upon him and 
personally recommended Brown. Brewer was un- 
successful. The President did not appoint his 
friend Brown. But from the long list of names 
presented for his consideration the President se- 
lected that of Brewer. 

About one year ago another vacancy was cre- 
ated upon the bench of that high tribunal. An- 
other list of names of distinguished lawyers and 
judges was presented to the President, and among 
them Brown. Brewer again called upon the Presi- 
dent in the interest of his friend Brown. This 
time he was successful. The college-trained, lib- 
erally educated and eminent jurist, Judge Brown, 
of Detroit, Mich., was appointed Associate Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the 
place lately made vacant by the lamented death 
of the venerable Justice Samuel Miller. Brewer 
and Brown now sit together upon the bench of 
that same court. 

An awkward country lad, from a rocky New 
England farm, entering the freshman class of 
Dartmouth College, became, as the result of his 
college training and after efforts, the great states- 
man Daniel Webster. Alexander Hamilton was a 
student of Columbia College, New York. Thomas 
Jefferson was a student of William and Mary's 
College, Virginia. Garfield sat upon one end of 
the log as student, with Mark Hopkins, of Wil- 
liams College, at the other end. The same Wil-. 



Does the University pay? 15 

liams College gave to Kansas Chancellor Snow, of 
this school. Michigan University gave to Kansas 
Chief Justice Horton, of our Kansas Supreme 
Court. Washington College, Pennsylvania, gave 
to the country James G. Blaine. The German 
Universities of Heidelberg and Munich gave us 
Louis Agassiz. 

Why do I mention these individual instances of 
eminent men who have been enrolled as students 
in colleges? For the purpose of saying to you, 
that while I do not expect each of you to become 
a Gladstone, a Harrison, a Webster, a Hamilton, 
a Brewer, a Blaine, or a Jefferson, I do expect 
that some of you will. The people of Kansas 
will deem their money wasted unless some of you 
become eminent. Is there any good reason known 
to you why Kansas should not produce great men 
and women? The fathers and mothers say that 
the Kansas boys and girls are as bright as those 
of any other State. The teachers say that the 
schools of Kansas are as good as those of other 
States. I presume the young men and women 
here would be willing to say that the University 
students are equal to college students elsewhere. 

I am unable to state any good reason why this 
University may not have a student within this 
room who will become as eminent a journalist as 
Horace Greeley, Whitelaw Reid, or J. K. Hudson; 
as eminent a lawyer as Chief Justice Marshall, 
Jud^e Dillon, or Albert H. Horton; as eminent a 



16 Does the university pay 9 

scientist as Huxley, Tyndall, Agassiz, or Snow; as 
eminent a statesman as Webster, Clay, Lincoln, 
Garfield, Plunib, or Ingalls; as eminent a teacher 
as Pestalozzi, Horace Mann, or A. E. Taylor; as 
eminent an historian as Gibbon, Hume, Macaulay, 
Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, or Wilder; as eminent 
a poet as Longfellow, Whittier, Alice Carey, or 
Eugene Ware; as eminent a novelist as Dickens, 
Hawthorne, or E. W. Howe; as eminent in the 
canse of temperance reform as Miss Willard, John 
B. Gough, Francis Murphy, or John P. St. John; 
as eminent in the cause of equal suffrage as Susan 
B. Anthony, Anna Shaw, or Laura M. Johns; as 
eminent a minister as Beecher, Spurgeon, Colly er, 
or Cordley; as eminent a humorist as Clemens, 
Brown, or Will. White. 

Indeed, I am acquainted with some of the Kan- 
sas boys of the University who are already making 
a name and a place for themselves whose luster 
gives promise of eminence and distinction in the 
future. The State of Kansas is young, and her 
native sons are but just arriving at the age of 
majority, and are still a long way behind the age 
of maturity. The Gleeds, the Franklins, Dyche, 
Carruth, Smith, Little, Stevens, Templin, Stocks, 
Johnson, Scott, are a few of those whose names 
now occur to me who are in a fair way to return 
to the State of Kansas, in pecuniary value, more 
than the University has cost. I may be mistaken 
about some of these particular names. There are 



Does the Univebsitt pay? 17 

many more that could and should be mentioned. 
But that the University already has students and 
graduates who will be heard from in the future 
is as certain, I think, as the coming sunrise to- 
morrow morning. Unless the farmers who re- 
ported the amount saved by them on their crops 
of last year at $200,000 misrepresented the facts, 
the chinch -bug experiments of Professor Snow at 
this University, alone, for a single year, were of 
a, pecuniary value sufficient to pay the entire cost 
of maintaining the University for more than two 
years. The University Extension work conducted 
by Professor Blackmar and the other members of 
the Faculty associated with him therein is of direct 
money value to the State of Kansas, and promises 
to add to the wealth of the State in the near 
future such a number of dollars and cents that, 
if I stated them, some one here present might ac- 
cuse me of using figures as recklessly as some 
political speakers whom we now have in the State 
of Kansas, of more than one political party. 

Without in any manner presuming to "advise" 
or seeking to control the management of the Uni- 
versity, and looking at the institution from the 
outside, I venture to suggest that, if the people 
of Kansas are to have the benefit of original re- 
search in science and the arts, they must look to 
the University for it. While I recognize the 
great necessity and high importance of the work 
of imparting instruction to the students who are 



18 Does the University Pat? 

in attendance here, there is a work properly per- 
taining to the University of transcendently greater 
importance : that is the work of enlarging the 
sum and aggregate of human knowledge. This 
means slow, patient and intelligent observation 
and thought. The secret processes of nature are 
revealed to the seeing eye and the thoughtful 
brain. Accidents there may be which remove ob- 
structions and assist in the solution of the prob- 
lems that beset the searcher after new processes, 
and that accompany new discoveries. But the 
discoveries themselves are the result of patient 
thought and endeavor. There is no royal road 
to the discoveries resulting in the enlargement of 
the boundaries of human knowledge in science 
any more than there is a royal road to the ac- 
quisition of the learning of books. 

The professors and students in the several de- 
partments of this University, not one, but all, 
should systematically devote a portion of their 
time to what, for want of a better name, I shall 
call original research. And each professor's work 
should be so arranged that he may have time and 
opportunity for this work. It is said that the 
work of the teacher is to impart knowledge to 
others. But this cannot be true; or, at least it is 
not more than half of the truth. Inspiration is 
as necessary as suspiration. The teacher must 
find out for himself before he can give out to 
others. Before Edison can discover to the world 



Does the univebsity pay? 19 

a new application of the marvelous force which 
we call electricity, he must himself first discover 
it to himself. 

Human endeavor consists primarily in providing 
food, shelter and clothing to sustain human life. 
A house to live iu, clothing to wear, and three 
meals a day, are what each of you require most of 
all, and without which you perish. To provide 
this constitutes the toil and endeavor of some one. 
The infant and the incapable have this done for 
them. You, I trust, have learned the supreme art 
and luxury of being able to earn your own liv- 
ing. The divine prayer for daily bread, which we 
were taught in infancy and continue reverently to 
repeat in our manhood, lies at the foundation of 
human need; and out of this necessity for whose 
relief it is invoked, come those great problems in 
political economy relating to labor, wages, and 
capital, which the civilized nations of the earth, 
our own included, find so difficult to solve. The 
Homestead riot and the Buffalo strike are but the 
upheavals from the continual strife and warring 
of discordant forces. If this University, by the 
thoughtful research of any of its teachers or stu- 
dents in political economy, can solve, or help 
materially to solve, any or all of these great 
problems now threatening the industrial world, 
their work here will not have been in vain, and 
will not have been too costly to the State. 

Closely related to political economy and the 



20 DOES THE UNIVERSITY PAY? 

questions already suggested are those governmental 
questions that make up the science and art of poli- 
tics. Here again are unsettled questions, of the 
greatest practical importance. Whether that gov- 
ernment is best which governs least, which leaves 
the largest possible liberty of individual action to 
its citizens, and relies most upon such individual 
effort for the promotion of great enterprises like 
the furnishing of the means of railroad transporta- 
tion, water, gas and electricity for cities, telegraph 
and telephonic communication, and the like; or 
whether that government is best which has large 
central power, and exercises a paternal care over 
its citizens, and itself undertakes to promote and 
carry on these great enterprises, or at least see 
that they are carried on, are questions upon 
which men and parties differ. 

The tariff question is one upon which men and 
parties differ. One great party, and the one 
which at the last general election for President 
cast 5,539,966 popular votes for its candidate, 
while the party that elected the President only 
cast 5,440,406 votes, has in its platform of this 
year declared it to be unconstitutional for the 
General Government to impose a tariff upon im- 
ported products, except for revenue only; another 
great party, and the one which at the last general 
election for President cast for its candidate 233 
electoral votes, as against 168 electoral votes for 
the opposing candidate, declares in its platform of 



DOES THE UmVEBSITY PAY? 21 

this year in favor of a tariff for protection. The 
present tariff law, known as the McKinley law, 
enacted by the Fifty-first Congress and not re- 
pealed or materially modified by the Fifty-second 
Congress, which has but recently adjourned, con- 
fessedly contains the principle of protection. It is 
also true that the tariff laws which have been in 
force in this Government for the last quarter of 
a century, and more, have also been protective 
tariffs. The question, therefore, is, which of these 
great parties is right and which is wrong upon 
the tariff. Back of that, however, is the ques- 
tion whether or not the tariff question itself is 
of material importance. Both parties agree that 
it is. 

The question, therefore, of tariff for revenue 
only, or of tariff for revenue and protection, is 
now before the American people. I am simply 
stating the question. I do not answer it. To this 
extent, I make this a political address. But now 
comes in the curious thing, and one which to a 
considerable extent is a puzzle to me. Why is it 
that college professors so largely favor free trade? 
Probably no one thing has done more to preju- 
dice a large and influential class of citizens against 
colleges and college professors than this tendency. 
I am informed that of late years this tendency 
among college professors is greatly on the decline ; 
and that, on the contrary, among the most active 
and influential college professors, who are now 



22 Does the Univebsity pay ? 

looked upon as authority upon questions of po- 
litical economy, the tendency is toward protection 
rather than free trade. England, alone, anioDg the 
great nations, by its laws may be regarded as a 
free-trade nation. The present laws of the United 
States and of Germany and France are distinctly 
protective. 

The whole matter is open and in dispute. 

Without desiring to precipitate this University 
into the arena of party politics, I am frank to say 
that I know of no study more worthy of the 
thoughtful consideration of the teachers and stu- 
dents of the University than politics, using the 
word in its true meaning as the science of gov- 
ernment. 

No more inviting, and certainly no more useful, 
field for university work in the domain of origi- 
nal research heretofore alluded to can be named 
than the large number of topics relating to the 
public health, and which may properly be gathered 
together under the generic name of sanitation. The 
disease of Asiatic cholera, that is now in quarantine 
at the harbor of New York, has been robbed of 
many of its terrors by the scientific research of mod- 
ern bacteriologists. It is now known to be an in- 
fectious disease, as distinguished from a contagious 
disease; that the germs of the disease are not com- 
municated through the air; that they are readily 
killed by heat, and cannot withstand frost, and are 
easily destroyed by common disinfectants; that no 



DOES THE UNIVEBSITY PAY? 23 

amount of proximity to a cholera patient will com- 
municate the disease, without the actual taking of 
the bacilli, or minute organisms constituting the 
disease germs, into the stomach of the person ex- 
posed to the infection; that the germs find an easy 
mode of communication in drinking water, but that 
boiling the water kills them; that the germs find a 
congenial abiding and breeding place in decaying 
animal and vegetable matter and in filth; that 
when once communicated to the human system, 
the disease speedily runs its course, a few hours 
or a few days telling its story of life or death. 
To cure the disease when once it has a lodgment 
in the human system is difficult. To prevent its 
obtaining such lodgment, and to devise w^ays and 
means for the destruction of the germs of the 
disease, so as to prevent the spread of the dis- 
ease, have been the object of scientific research. 

All of this is now common knowledge, pos- 
sessed by every one who cares to read the news- 
papers. This common knowledge, if intelligently 
used, is sufficient to prevent any serious outbreak 
or spread of the disease in this country this year 
or any other year. There is, therefore, not the 
slightest occasion for alarm or panic. 

But what I desire to call attention to, and the 
purpose for which I have referred to this partic- 
ular disease, is the debt of gratitude humanity 
owes to the scientific workers whose investigations 
in this domain of research have done so much to 



24 DOES THE UNIVERSITY PAY? 

rob the disease of its terrors, and to prevent the 
destruction of human life thereby. 

Jenner's vaccination for small -pox, Pasteur's- 
remedy for hydrophobia, Lister's methods of anti- 
septic surgery, and quinine for malarial poison, 
are among the beneficial results of scientific re- 
search ; and all of great pecuniary as well as 
humanitarian value. 

Scarlet fever and yellow fever have yielded up 
to science the secrets of their malevolent action, 
and have been shorn of their terrors to a large 
extent. The supreme mastery of science over 
these kindred diseases has been found in the 
means of prevention rather than cure. 

The door is still open for further scientific in- 
vestigation and discovery along the lines of sani- 
tation. 

But the University should not, and I think it 
will not, omit to continue the work of original 
investigation and original research in all of its 
various departments. 

Carlyle is credited with saying that the true 
university of these days is a collection of books. 
I do not think this is true. But I do think that 
a collection of books will greatly help to make 
the true university. And I do not see very well 
how there can be a university without books. 
This University is lacking in books and in a 
place to keep books. I am not oblivious to the 
fact that there are some books here, and good 



DOES THE UNIVEBSITY PAY? 25 

books at that. But the library here does not 
begin to furnish the facilities for study and re- 
search that should be afforded by a university 
library. The collection of books here is valuable, 
but should be increased by successive additions 
from year to year, as the University grows and 
prospers. But even if the University had the 
books, it has no place to put them. The natural 
history department is comfortably housed in Snow 
Hall. There ought to be a library building here 
equal in size and architectural design to the nat- 
ural history building. 

The true product of the University is the edu- 
cated man. He has for four years pursued his 
chosen course of study. With each successive year 
he has experienced a mental awakening and a 
symmetrical growth of all the powers of man- 
hood. He has not permitted the body to suffer 
decay while the mind has been engaged. He is 
a member of the athletic club, as well as of the 
literary society and the fraternity. His moral na- 
ture has been stimulated to right action, and his 
religious faculties awakened to a higher appreci- 
ation of the wisdom, power and goodness of God 
by the revelation of all these opened to him by 
his study of the wonders of the works of the 
creator. 

He has been a diligent student in the library, 
but is not a bookworm. He is learned, but not 
pedantic. He has acquired a knowledge of Ian- 



26 DOES THE UNIVERSITY PAY? 

guage and literature that enables him not only to 
read and appreciate good books, but his ambition 
has been roused to produce other good books. 

He has acquired a scientific knowledge sufficient 
to enable him to appreciate not only how much, 
but how little, is known of science. Some of the 
laws of nature have been revealed to him as an 
open book ; others are near at hand, but not yet 
manifest to his brain in their completeness, and in 
their relation to those which are known. And he 
also has something of the scientific feeling of the 
illimitability of the boundaries of the aggregate of 
human knowledge that may yet be attained. 

He remembers that the educated man must eat 
and drink to live, as certainly as some men live 
to eat and drink. He has been initiated into the 
art of plain living and high thinking. He has 
learned that this is a practical and utilitarian 
world, and that in the long run every man is 
likely to rise to as high a level among his fellow- 
men as his deserts will justify; that the world's 
judgment is upon the whole a just judgment as 
to the individual merits of each person in this 
country. And that those make their way best 
with their fellow-men who have the most inti- 
mate and accurate knowledge of what is known 
and spoken of as human nature; that is, that a 
knowledge of men is as important to the univer- 
sity student as the knowledge of the books. 

The student of this University will learn, I 



DOES THE UNIVERSITY PAY? 27 

trust, that while life on this earth is of exceed- 
ingly great importance, its duration is limited 
to a period of time so absolutely infinitesimal, as 
compared with life in the world to come, that it 
must be looked upon only in the light of a prep- 
aration for the invisible world, a development of 
man's powers for higher flights, an introduction 
to the higher life of the soul, when relieved from 
the restraint and limitations of the earthly life. 
The student of this University will not have 
learned his lesson of life well, unless he learns 
that those whose lives are nearest to the life of 
Christ are those who have received the highest 
education of all. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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